his
girl is a connection of theirs?"

"Perhaps not a very suitable friend: Miss Polehampton may be right,"
said Lady Caroline. "I suppose I must go over to Brighton and see
Margaret."

"Bring her back with you," said Mr. Adair, recklessly. "She has had
quite enough of school by this time: she is nearly eighteen, isn't she?"

But Lady Caroline smilingly refused to decide anything until she had
herself interviewed Miss Polehampton. She asked her husband to order the
carriage for her at once, and retired to summon her maid and array
herself for the journey.

"You won't go to-day, will you, Philip?" said Mr. Adair, almost
appealingly. "I shall be all alone, and my wife will not perhaps return
until to-morrow--there's no saying."

"Thank you, I shall be most pleased to stay," answered Sir Philip,
cordially. After a moment's pause, he added, with something very like a
touch of shyness--"I have not seen--your daughter since she was twelve
years old."

"Haven't you?" said Mr. Adair, with ready interest. "You don't say so!
Pretty little girl she was then! Didn't you think so?"

"I thought her the loveliest child I had ever seen in all my life," said
Sir Philip, with curious devoutness of manner.

He saw Lady Caroline just as she was starting for the train, with man
and maid in attendance, and Mr. Adair handing her into the carriage and
gallantly offering to accompany her if she liked. "Not at all
necessary," said Lady Caroline, with an indulgent smile. "I shall be
home to dinner. Take care of my husband, Philip, and don't let him be
dull."

"If they are making Margaret unhappy, be sure you bring her back with
you," were Mr. Adair's last words. Lady Caroline gave him a kind but
inscrutable little smile and nod as she was whirled away. Sir Philip
thought to himself that she looked like a woman who would take her own
course in spite of advice or recommendation from her husband or anybody
else.

He smiled once or twice as the day passed on at her parting injunction
to him not to let her husband be dull. He had known the Adairs for many
years, and had never known Reginald Adair dull under any circumstances.
He was too full of interests, of "fads," some people called them, ever
to be dull. He took Sir Philip round the picture-gallery, round the
stables, to the kennels, to the flower-garden, to his own studio (where
he painted in oils when he had nothing else to do) with never-flagging
energy and animation. Sir Philip's i